The defection of Muammar Qaddafi’s
foreign minister shows his regime is disintegrating, said U.K.
Prime Minister David Cameron, while the Obama administration
called the departure “a significant blow.”

“It tells a compelling story of the desperation and the
fear right at the heart of the crumbling and rotten Qaddafi
regime,” Cameron told reporters in London today.

In Washington, U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates and
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Mike Mullen said
they don’t favor using the American military to provide weapons
or training to the rebels fighting troops loyal to Qaddafi in
the North African country.

The U.S. doesn’t know enough about the rebel groups beyond
a “handful” of leaders, Gates said. Both said other countries
should take on the task of aiding the rebels directly. “There
are plenty of countries who have the ability, the arms, the
skill set to be able to do this,” Mullen said.

Cameron and U.S. President Barack Obama have said they
haven’t ruled out arming the rebels.

Cameron also said today that Libyan Foreign Minister
Moussa Koussa, who quit Qaddafi’s government and flew to
Britain, hasn’t been offered immunity. The Scottish prosecutor
said it wanted to interview Koussa about the 1988 bombing of a
U.S. airliner over Lockerbie.

‘Disarray’

Koussa, as one of Qaddafi’s most trusted aides, “can help
provide critical intelligence about Qaddafi’s current state of
mind and military plans,” White House National Security
Council spokesman Tommy Vietor said in a statement. His
defection “demonstrates that the people around Qaddafi
understand his regime is in disarray.”

U.S. Deputy Secretary of State James Steinberg told
members of the House Foreign Affairs Committee today that
Qaddafi’s ability to carry out terrorism is “something we’re
concerned about,” and among the reasons the U.S. wants him out
of power.

Dozens of Libyan diplomats have quit since the uprising
against Qaddafi began in mid-February. Koussa is one of the
most senior officials to flee as government forces make gains
against rebels.

Libya’s former deputy ambassador to the United Nations,
Ibrahim Dabbashi, said more diplomats and senior-ranking
Libyans are likely to defect from the Qaddafi regime “within
days,” Sky News reported.

Oil Prices

The western Libyan city of Misrata was subjected to
“heavy shelling and heavy artillery fire by Qaddafi forces
throughout the night and in the early hours of this morning,”
rebel spokesman Saddoun al-Misrati told BBC World Service
radio.

Oil prices, which have jumped more than 20 percent since
mass protests against Libya’s regime started, rose the most in
two weeks in New York amid concern the conflict will prolong
production cuts. Prices advanced as much as 2.4 percent.

The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries’ crude
output dropped in March as increases from Saudi Arabia failed
to make up for a decline in Libyan production to a 49-year low,
a Bloomberg News survey showed.

North Atlantic Treaty Organization Secretary General
Anders Fogh Rasmussen said in a statement the alliance is now
in charge of allied air operations over Libya.

“We are there to protect the Libyan people, not to arm
people,” Rasmussen said at a briefing in Stockholm today.

90 Missions

NATO jets carried out more than 90 missions today, Charles
Bouchard, the Canadian air force general commanding the
operation, said via videolink from Naples, Italy. A total of 20
of the 28 member states are expected to contribute forces in
the initial stages, NATO said. Germany has declined to take
part.

The U.S. and the U.K. have deployed special operations
forces and intelligence agents in Libya to assist with
targeting of allied air strikes and to forge contacts with
Libyan rebels, the New York Times reported, citing unnamed
officials in both countries. It said CIA agents and “dozens”
of British Special Air Service and Special Boat Service
soldiers are in Libya.

Obama signed a “secret finding” authorizing the CIA to
provide arms and other aid to rebels, the newspaper said,
though so far no weapons have been sent.

More Weapons Needed

“The rebels need more heavy weapons,” said Jan Techau,
director of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in
Brussels and a former analyst at the NATO Defense College.
“They need simple stuff -- not high-tech weaponry that
requires extensive training and would be dangerous if it fell
into terrorist hands.”

Fighter jets from the United Arab Emirates arrived on the
Italian island of Sardinia to join the Libya mission, said
Thierry Burkhard, a French military spokesman. Jets from Qatar
are already flying with NATO forces.

The contested Libyan towns of Sirte, Misrata and Zintan
are the focus of coalition air attacks, French Defense Minister
Gerard Longuet said today in Paris.

“We are trying to loosen the noose around these towns,
and it is working,” Longuet said at a press conference.

Most of the Libyan regime’s heavy military equipment has
been destroyed or pinned to its bases, he said. Coalition air
attacks are becoming more difficult because the front has been
moving fast and because “lighter units are harder to
distinguish between the sides,” he said.

Civilians Killed

At least 40 civilians were killed by alliance airstrikes
in the Libyan capital, the Vatican news agency Fides reported,
citing Bishop Giovanni Innocenzo Martinelli, apostolic vicar of
Tripoli. NATO said it was investigating the claim.

Qaddafi said Western air strikes could lead to a war
between Christians and Muslims that could spiral out of
control, Sky News reported, citing a statement by the Libyan
leader broadcast by state television.

The rebels, after advancing toward Qaddafi’s hometown of
Sirte, withdrew in the face of artillery and rocket attacks
over the past two days as pro-Qaddafi forces retook control of
the oil port of Ras Lanuf. They were also shelling Brega,
another energy hub to the east of Ras Lanuf, and many rebels
retreated from there to regroup in Ajdabiya farther along the
coast, about 100 miles (160 kilometers) from the rebel
stronghold of Benghazi, the Associated Press said.

No U.S. Role

Meanwhile, State Department spokesman Mark Toner said U.S.
officials played no role in Koussa’s defection.

Koussa, who hasn’t commented on his move, is a longtime
Qaddafi aide who served as head of intelligence and helped
negotiate Libya’s rapprochement with the U.S. and its allies in
the past decade. That included the payment of compensation to
the families of people killed in the bombing of Pan Am Flight
103 over the Scottish town of Lockerbie that killed 270 people,
the BBC reported.

The Libyan government said Koussa had been granted “sick
leave” and had asked to travel to neighboring Tunisia.

Libyan government spokesman Moussa Ibrahim described
Koussa as “exhausted.”